


'Cause You're A Criminal As Long As You're Mine

by landrews



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, F/M, Ghosts, Hunters & Hunting, Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2013-10-16
Packaged: 2017-12-29 14:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/landrews/pseuds/landrews
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean screws up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Cause You're A Criminal As Long As You're Mine

**Author's Note:**

> Dean POV
> 
> Spoilers: None- set S1 - written August 2010
> 
> Disclaimer: Just for fun- Supernatural owned by Kripke, et al, ect.
> 
> A/N: Originally written for spn_las, but I had to take a skip because it ran over the word count by a lot, lolol. The prompt was the song 'Bad Romance' by Lady Gaga and the title is from the same :-) Thanks, starlet2367 for beating time outta your day to give me a look-see!!!

Dean smacks Sam's shoulder with the back of his hand. “Hey, isn't that the girl from Jasper? Tennessee?” 

Sam squints over his shoulder into the gloom of the neon-lit bar .

“That one, the brunette. Jacket, halter top?”

Turning back to his beer, Sam shrugs. “That was three days ago, Dean.”

The girl's looking down into her cocktail glass, her hair covering most of her face now, but Dean is almost certain... The too big black leather jacket that leaves just her black-painted nails showing as she holds onto her glass in both hands, the bare legs, the biker boots. Tucking her hair behind her ear, she glances towards him, her full bottom lip, dark with black lipstick, caught between her teeth. Silver glints off the multiple studs in her ear in the annoying, multi-hued neon light. She has one through her tongue, he knows. Dean pats the bar without looking at Sam. They had walked over from the hotel. Sammy's a big boy, right? “Don't wait up, Sammy.”

“It's Sam,” Sam mutters.

“Whatever.” Dean launches himself in the direction of Missy. Or maybe Mitzi? Mona. That was it.

 

***

Driving west of Malden three days later, Dean shifts the ice pack that's taken the screaming pain of his bruised fingers and burgeoning black eye down to a dull throb, onto his cheek bone, which he's sure the fucking poltergeist must have broken. He cracks open his eyelid, to check his vision. His headlights strike something girl-like in black, walking alongside the road, but then the Impala whips by before he can focus on it. 

He's hitting the brakes before the thought of doing so has fully formed in his brain.

“What's wrong,” Sam says, straightening up in the passenger seat, sleep falling from his face in seconds. He winces against the ache Dean knows too well, and presses a hand to his ribs.

“Nothing, little bro, just thought I saw something,” Dean soothes as the Impala's tires crunch over the gravel on the shoulder. 

Dean stops the car as gently as possible, but Sam still gasps when it rocks to a halt. Dean leaves it running, opens the door, and steps out into the chilly Missouri night, still clutching the ice pack in his hand.

A breeze kisses his scalp and twists around his neck. Dean tugs the collar of his coat up with his free hand as he stares back down the road. The quarter moon is weak, and there's no street lights or houses along this stretch of highway, which is only two lanes wide. Under the sound of the engine, there's not much else to hear. Dean doesn't know what insects Missouri has, but it seems like there'd be crickets or something like that screeing out there in the tree line. A darker-than-the-rest-of-the-night shadow resolves into a moving shape. 

“Dean,” Sam says.

“Thought I saw a girl, Sammy, by herself.”

“Light, Dean,” Sam says, his voice exasperated. 

Dean ducks, tosses the ice pack onto his seat and takes the flashlight Sam's waving at him. “Light,” he calls into the dark and thumbs it on with his left hand at the same time he closes the bruised fingers of his right around the handle of his Colt at the small of his back. 

It is a girl, walking confidently, with her head held high. Dean frowns. She holds up her hands. “Hey, Dean, I thought I recognized that car.”

“Mona?” He could smack himself, because he's the one with the light, but he's still not quite sure. 

“Yeah. Could you...” she motions downward with the flat of her palm.

“Oh,” he says, lowering the light so it's not shining in her face. “Sorry.”

“No worries.”

Now that she's only ten feet away, he's certain it's her. Same black jacket, bare legs, and biker boots. “Aren't you cold?” he blurts.

She laughs. “Yeah, I am. Made the creep I was hitching with drop me out a few miles back. Wish I'd known you were going this way.” 

“Christo,” Sam calls from the car. 

Mona laughs again, a small tinkle of happy that warms Dean's chest. He grins. He hasn't seen demons laugh before, so he's pretty sure she's really Mona. 

“Is that your brother?”

“Yeah, he swears funny. Doesn't like to say 'christ' so he says 'christo' instead.” 

There's still no reaction from her that Dean can see. He releases his undrawn gun and opens the back door. “Ride?”

“Sure,” she giggles. She slides out of the small backpack she's wearing, the same one she was carrying in Kentucky three days ago, and gets in.

When they find a small motel an hour later, they get two rooms. Sam and his cracked ribs sleep alone.

 

***

“I hope she's okay,” Dean says for at least the fifteenth time since lunch, and the third time since they finished dinner. He's even annoying himself. 

Sam sighs. “Drop it, Dean. So she was gone when you woke up. It's been three days, get over yourself.”

“But...”

“How many times have you done it, Dean?”

Just snuck out? A couple of exceptions come to mind immediately, but now that's he thinking about it- most of the times he's actually managed to get laid in a bed and not in the car or against a wall or in a booth. Boy, he'd like to do that again. That was...

“Earth to Dean.”

“What?”

Sam taps a tiny half-inch article in the local paper. “Suspicious fire, started in the kids' room. Neighbor says he saw a man he didn't recognize standing in the room, but the cops say only the family was inside. No survivors.”

Dean pushes his cherry pie away even though there's still a bite left on the plate. “Where?”

“Bluejacket, Oklahoma. It's only two hours from here.”

“Crash there tonight, start fresh in the morning?”

Sam nods and starts packing his stuff away.

They drop cash on the diner table and push out into the evening. A last trace of red from the setting sun edges the storm clouds building along the horizon. Sam stops suddenly, and Dean lists right, turning absently into the empty space beside him until he's facing Sam. Gazing past him, Sam's wearing his puzzled dog expression. 

Dean pivots and follows his line of sight. Mona is leaning against the trunk of the Impala, studying her nails. The diner's sodium security light crackles to life, casting its yellow light over her. She tilts her head up and catches his eye. Her brows rise. “Are you following me?” she says.

“No,” Dean sputters.

“Where are you headed now?”

“Um,” Dean says, as Sam grabs his upper arm. He turns his head into Sam's shoulder, talking fast and low. “Dude, I don't like this.”

“Ask her where she's going.”

Dean shakes his arm loose and straightens his jacket. “Um, where you going?”

She laughs. “Dude, I am so not following you. I'm trying to get to my Aunt's. She lives in Carlyle.”

“Where's that?” Sam asks.

“In nowheresville, Oklahoma.”

“What's it close to,” Dean hedges.

“It's like an hour and half north of Tulsa. The closest town with a grocery store is Bluejacket.”

Sam's shaking his head already and Dean wants to knock it off his shoulders already. “Dude.”

“Dude.”

“Dean,” Sam starts, but then Mona's walking away.

“Mona, wait,” Dean yells. Sam gives him the evil eye, but it's not like Dean can just let her go off to continue hitchhiking or whatever with some creepy guy when he and Sam are going right where she needs to go. God knows what might get her. 

Mona keeps walking and Dean's forced to trot after her. At least he knows Sam won't run after him, since his ribs still hurt. “Mona, wait, hold up.”

She stops, but keeps her back to him. He catches up and puts his hands on her shoulders. “Sweetheart. Sammy's just freaked because we're going to Bluejacket.”

“Are you really?” she says. Her voice is choked and it's then Dean realizes she's crying. Damn it. 

He turns her into him and holds her tight. “Really. We have a job there.”

“That's just weird, isn't it? Like we keep running into each other, and I can't seem to just get from Tennessee to Oklahoma without ending up all over the place, and you're here in wherever this is, which is just weird...”

“Shhh,” Dean whispers. “It's all right.” 

“I just want to go home.” 

“To Tennessee?”

“To Carlyle, to my Aunt's. I don't know why I ever went to Jasper in the first place.”

“We'll take you, right now. It's not that far.”

He walks her back to the car. Sam glares at him the whole way and beats him to the passenger side. Dean rolls his eyes when Sam makes a show of settling carefully into the front seat. “His ribs, you know.”

“It's okay, Dean, the back's fine.” She reaches up and traces his brow line, sliding her cool fingertip along the bone onto his cheek. His puffy skin is still tender, but he presses into her touch, his eyes closing as he remembers how she felt like cool water closing over him as she lowered herself over him until they were pressed together, shoulder to thigh. How she stretched out and absorbed the heat rising from his fevered skin.

He closes his hand around hers and holds it still while he kisses her, gently, hoping he's making it more of a promise than a need. She eases into the back and he shuts the door. Jesus Christ, this is weird.

Once they're out on 71, headed for 44, Sam starts asking Mona questions: her last name, her Aunt's name and address, why she didn't take a bus.

After months on the road with Sam, Dean understands how come Dad developed a growl. He does his best not to snarl when he croaks, “Sam, give it a rest.” The thing is, he knows it's not right, this thing with Mona, but he can't help himself wanting to... wanting. Her. He wants her. He's got a chubby that's totally uncomfortable just knowing she's sitting behind him. He shifts in the seat, but it doesn't help. 

In Oklahoma, they turn north off 44 and onto some rural blacktop that's barely two lanes. 

The white line slips by and slips by and Dean's trying to watch it rather than glance in the rear view every five seconds when Sam clears his throat. He's holding up his phone as if Dean can read what's written there. 

After a second of sparring without words, Dean focuses on the dark, uneven road. Sam huffs like he's thirteen and starts digging around in the glove box.

“Here,” Mona says from the back seat, although 'here' is nowhere, just another dark stretch of road. Her hand brushes the back of Dean's neck, sending a chill straight down his spine. He looks up, but she must be leaning against the door, because he can't see her. 

“Here?” Sam asks, twisting to talk to her. He's prying open a red shotgun cartridge. Another spills off his lap. “Mona?”

Freak, Dean thinks, but then Sam lunges over the seat back, hand raised. 

Rock salt showers over Dean. He steps hard on the brakes. 

The Impala slews sideways and Sam yells as he crashes back down into the front seat. His head thumps Dean's thigh. 

“Damn it, Dean,” Sam hisses, holding his ribs.

Dean jerks open his door, shoves himself out, grabs Mona's door, and wrenches it open. She's gone.

 

***

By the time they u-turn at dead ends a couple of times and have a brief argument over whether they should go east or west at an unmarked dirt crossroad (Dean wins because he's the driver, but he's wrong), it's nearing midnight. Even so, every light is burning at the ramshackle frame house at the address Mona gave them for her aunt. Dean pulls in behind the only vehicle, a rusted 1967 Chevy pick-up, and parks.

The both get out and pick their way past the brambly bushes encroaching a weedy path of pavers to the covered front porch. Dean tests the steps. They're sturdy enough. The house looks better up close. The stain is weathered and the porch railing is rough, but the floor boards are clean and there's a rag rug laid out in welcome. The wood door's standing open, though the screen door's closed, painting a crosshatch of shadows across Sam when he steps up to the door and knocks. 

Dean stays back in the shadow of the porch, ready to defend them depending on what comes to the door. 

“Coming,” a wavering voice calls, a woman's voice. Sam's jaw is clenched tight. 

An old lady who looks remarkably like Mona, only with silver hair and papery skin that sags in inch-thick wrinkles along her face, walks into view with short, firm steps that carry her with remarkable speed to the door. “I've been waiting for you.”

Sam cocks his head. “Excuse me?”

“I've been waiting,” the woman enunciates loudly, like Sam is deaf. “For you,” she continues, and swings the screen door open so that Sam has to step back out of the way. She steps neatly into the cleared spot and lets the door fall shut behind her. 

“Why?” Dean says.

She swivels her head, peering through her granny glasses at him. She nods. “Do you have Mona's ring, young man? You're just her type.”

“No, ma'am.”

“Come now,” she admonishes.

“Ma'am,” Sam says.

She shakes her head. “He has her ring, he must, or you two wouldn't be here tonight, not this night. Some other suitor would be shaking in his boots and ready to faint at the mere mention of her, even though that's why they come.”

“Mona's...”

“Dead.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Sam says.

“What's wrong with you two?” Mona's Aunt Karen says. Dean expects her to stomp her foot any moment. “You're not scared.”

“No, ma'am. She's not a White Lady, she's never hurt anyone.” Dean is careful not to look at Sam. He can't forget the way Sam's eyes dipped close for just a moment, his face blank while he buried whatever image had risen inside him when they talked about the White Lady on the way to Aunt Karen's. He can't forget, but he can pretend it never happened. “She's, um, a hitchhiking ghost?” He stumbles over the word 'ghost'. His stomach's been porpoise-rolling ever since she disappeared on them four hundred feet from the entrance to White's Road Cemetery.

Aunt Karen's eyes narrow. “I know you have her ring.”

Dean shakes his head. “I don't.”

“It's a silver skull, a man's pinky ring. She wore it on her index finger.”

Shit. “Shit,” he says.

Sam looks like he just bit into a lemon wedge and he lifts both his hands to the back of his head. Dean hadn't told him about it, but he looks as guilty as Dean feels.

It had been lying in the grass at the graveyard in Jasper. Not in a grave or anything, not even on a headstone like an offering. Dean had scooped it up and pocketed it without a thought. When he looked at it later, in the bathroom when he stripped to shower, it was silver; real silver through and through. “It's in my shaving kit.”

Sam roughs his hair up, working his throat, and then drops his hands. “Ma'am, my brother's going to go get that ring for you right now.” He tilts his head at the car, making go motions with his eyes.

Dean's boots might as well be filled with lead shot. “I'm...” he says before his throat closes again.

“Go, Dean,” Sam says, exasperation clear.

“Sorry,” Dean whispers. He trudges down off the porch, his back burning from the old lady's imagined gaze and Sam's fury.

He rummages in the dark trunk for the right duffle and then scrabbles his fingers around in his kit until the ring rolls against his finger. It's cold. He plucks it up, slams the trunk, and hustles back. The porch is empty. He follows Sam's voice through the screen door, down the short hall, and into the kitchen. The house is clean and simply furnished. Not too many doilies or knick-knacks and not a scrap of lace. Dean approves. 

Aunt Karen stops smiling when he walks in. Sam's sitting in a chair with tea in front of him, his back to Dean. Dean reaches over his shoulder and sets the ring on the table. He sees Sam wanting to touch it, to examine what kind of talisman could attach Mona to Dean. He doesn't, though. 

“Son,” Aunt Karen says. “Never lift items from a graveyard.”

Dean flushes. “Yes, ma'am,” he mumbles.

“Now don't feel so bad. On her birthday, that ring will go missing again, and next year, some other poor fool half in love with her will be standing right there where you are.”

Sam steeples his hands. “We can take care of that for you, Mrs. Vernon.”

Her eyes widen.

“It's kind of what we do. Mona's soul can rest in peace, if you'll help us out just a little.”

Aunt Karen's face softens again and Dean can see that she's much older than he thought before. She smiles and then she fades. The house plunges into darkness. 

“Dean?” Sam says.

“Yeah, Sam.”

“I don't think she wants us to do that.”

“'ya, think, Sammy?”

He bangs his knee on something on the way out and then falls through a cobweb in the doorway. His foot goes through the top step. It takes six torches being lit three times each before the house gives up with a muffled whump that presses deep into Dean's ears and goes up in flames that'll take it to the ground. 

A half-mile down the dirt road, Dean parks and cuts the engine. A sudden shudder wracks him so hard his hands clench around the wheel and his head jerks. He takes a deep breath and leans his forehead against the wheel. He did a freakin' ghost. And he liked it. He liked her. Beside him, Sam sighs and then levers himself up and out into the cold without a word, though Dean knows they're coming. She was a freakin' ghost. He wants to peel out and leave Oklahoma behind, but there's digging yet to do. He won't be picking anything up at White's Road Cemetery, that's for sure. Weary to his bones, Dean pulls the door handle and joins Sam.

They lean against the warm Impala in the freezing stillness of the morning before dawn and watch through the trees until the light of the fire dies.


End file.
